Headlines

Go To MLB Trade Rumors
Go To Hoops Rumors

Penguins Announce Multiple Coaching Hires

at CDT | by 3 Comments

The Pittsburgh Penguins have finalized their coaching staff under head coach Dan Muse. Pittsburgh announced that they’ve hired Todd Nelson, Nick Bonino, and Rich Clune as assistant coaches, and Troy Paquette as the team’s assistant video coach. 

In his second stint as an assistant coach at the NHL level, Nelson is arguably the most important of the hires. Serving as the head coach of the AHL’s Hershey Bears for the last three years, Nelson will make the more than 200-mile move to western Pennsylvania. It’s difficult to find many faults during his time with the Bears, amassing an impressive 65.28% win percentage with a 141-53-12-10 record in 216 regular season games. His winning ways continued in the postseason, coaching the Bears to a 31-17-0 record in 48  (64.58%) postseason contests over the last three years, with back-to-back Calder Cup Final championships.

Bonino’s formal hire comes with little surprise. The Penguins announced on their Facebook page a few days ago that Bonino had officially retired from his professional playing career and would be joining the team’s bench for the 2025-26 campaign. Coupled with his time on the ice, the 2025-26 campaign will be his fourth with Pittsburgh.

Like Nelson and Bonino, the Penguins are also bringing in a former NHLer in Clune. The longtime veteran for the AHL’s Toronto Marlies began his coaching career shortly after retiring in 2022-23 as the Marlies’ development coach. He’s coming to Pittsburgh on the heels of his first coaching job in the NHL, serving as an assistant coach for the Anaheim Ducks on Greg Cronin’s bench last season.

Avalanche Sign Jason Polin, Matthew Stienburg To One-Year Deals

at CDT | by Leave a Comment

In separate announcements, the Colorado Avalanche shared that they’ve signed forwards Jason Polin and Matthew Stienburg to one-year deals through the 2025-26 season. According to contract data provided by Puck Pedia, Polin will earn an NHL salary of $775K and $130K in the AHL. No contract details for Stienburg have been disclosed, but his salary will likely fall within a similar range.

Polin’s new deal comes with some surprise. The former Hobey Baker Award finalist hasn’t come close to the scoring output that he demonstrated with the NCAA’s Western Michigan University Broncos. Throughout his tenure with Colorado, the Holt, MI native has scored 15 goals and 30 points in 88 AHL contests, and only one goal in nine NHL appearances. Still, given the improbable number of injuries sustained by the Avalanche throughout the 2024-25 season, it makes sense that the team would like to retain most of their depth pieces in the system.

Like Polin, Stienburg signed with the organization out of college, though he had been previously drafted by the Avalanche in 2019, from Cornell University. Unlike Polin, Stienburg didn’t come to the organization with as much hype, given his career high of 13 goals and 29 points in 28 games with Cornell during his junior campaign in 2021-22.

Similarly to many of his peers, Stienburg earned a call-up with Colorado this past season, due to injuries to players on the NHL roster. Going scoreless in eight games, Stienburg’s only notable play was earning a two-game suspension for elbowing Tampa Bay Lightning defenseman Erik Černák.

Link to the team’s announcement for Polin.

Link to the team’s announcement for Stienburg.

Dallas Stars Re-Sign Cameron Hughes To Two-Year Deal

at CDT | by Leave a Comment

As announced by their AHL affiliate, the Texas Stars, the Dallas Stars have re-signed forward Cameron Hughes to a two-year, two-way contract. Although the team hasn’t confirmed his upcoming salary, the contract is likely to pay Hughes an AAV of $ 775K at the NHL level.

The former sixth-round pick of the Boston Bruins recently completed his first season with the Stars organization. The AHL Stars’ assistant captain finished third in scoring on the team, tallying 23 goals and 57 points in 69 games, with four additional goals and 19 points in 14 postseason contests, this time leading the team.

Still, as previously mentioned, Texas isn’t where Hughes began his professional playing career. As the 165th overall pick of the 2015 NHL Draft, it would take an additional three years for Hughes to debut with the AHL’s Providence Bruins. He was relatively successful with AHL Providence, primarily as a secondary scorer from 2018 to 2021. It wasn’t until the 2021-22 season that Hughes nearly doubled his previous career-high, scoring 14 goals and 45 points in 61 games.

Becoming a free agent after the 2021-22 campaign, Hughes settled on a two-year, $1.53MM agreement with the Seattle Kraken. His departure from the Bruins organization marked the final time he has played at the NHL level, appearing in one game during the 2019-20 season and another in the 2020-21 season.

Hughes’ two-year commitment with the Kraken proved wildly successful at the AHL level, this time with the Coachella Valley Firebirds. Scoring 44 goals and 113 points in 130 regular-season games, with another four goals and 39 points in 44 postseason contests, Hughes helped the Firebirds reach back-to-back Calder Cup Finals.

Free Agent Focus: Tampa Bay Lightning

at CDT | by 9 Comments

Free agency is less than a month away and teams are looking ahead to when it opens.  There will be several impact players set to hit the open market in July while many teams have key restricted free agents to re-sign as well.  We continue our look around the NHL with an overview of the free agent situation for the Lightning.

Key Restricted Free Agents

F Gage Goncalves – Even on a relatively deep Lightning team, Goncalves successfully parlayed an impressive run with the AHL’s Syracuse Crunch into a full-time role at the NHL level. From 2022 to 2024, Goncalves scored 26 goals and 112 points in 140 AHL contests, with another four goals and 11 points in 12 postseason contests. This gave Tampa Bay the confidence to allow Goncalves a longer-term opportunity at the NHL level, and his tryout proved successful by all accounts. Goncalves scored eight goals and 20 points in 60 games for the Lightning while averaging 12:48 of ice time per night, and achieved a 92.0% on-ice save percentage at even strength. Given the roster flexibility he affords and arbitration eligibility status, Goncalves should earn a healthy bump on his $775K salary from last year, but it’ll likely be less than double.

Other RFAs: F Jaydon Dureau, F Ryder Korczak, F Waltteri Merela, G Hugo Alnefelt

Key Unrestricted Free Agents

D Nicklaus Perbix – Over the last three years, Perbix has scored 13 goals and 63 points in 220 regular-season contests, with a 51.2% CorsiFor% at even strength, and a 91.0% on-ice save percentage. This is a quality value for a defenseman who has averaged less than 16 minutes of ice time per game and has been playing on a $1.125MM AAV for the last two seasons. Unfortunately, his performance might have made it too expensive for him to continue with Tampa Bay. AFP Analytics projects Perbix to command a two-year, $5.2MM contract this offseason, which would take up almost 75% of the Lightning’s available cap space. Ultimately, the team will likely look for a cheaper right-handed option to fill in the gap or use a combination of Steven Santini and Maxwell Crozier next season.

F Luke Glendening – The University of Michigan alumnus may no longer have the capacity to score 20 points a year, nor is he in danger of receiving fringe votes for the Selke Trophy, but Glendening still holds value in a niche role. He remains one of the most effective faceoff takers in the league, winning 56.5% of his 1,829 draws taken with the Lightning. Given that he started 66.7% of his shifts in the defensive zone with Tampa Bay, Glendening ultimately gave the Lightning a better chance to retain possession and have an effective breakout. Still, even without the same faceoff talent, there may be better options available for Tampa Bay this offseason, at a similar league-minimum salary.

Other UFAs: F Cam Atkinson, F Anthony Angello, F Logan Brown, F Gabriel Fortier, D Derrick Pouliot, D Tobie Paquette-Bisson, G Matt Tomkins

Projected Cap Space

As alluded to earlier when talking about Perbix, the Lightning will again be limited by the salary cap this summer. Although there are no expectations this offseason, it is important to remember that Tampa Bay faced a similar situation last offseason and successfully acquired and signed the market’s top unrestricted free agent, Jake Guentzel. General Manager Julien BriseBois has shown time and time again that the Lightning can never truly be counted out of any available player, and it’ll be another interesting study to see how he weaponizes Tampa Bay’s projected $3.4MM in cap space this summer.

Seattle Kraken Acquire Mason Marchment

at CDT | by 21 Comments

As expected, the Dallas Stars have opened up additional salary cap space leading up to the offseason. According to a team announcement, the team has traded forward Mason Marchment to the Seattle Kraken for a 2026 third-round pick and Dallas’s 2025 fourth-round pick, which was previously sent to the New York Rangers and later acquired by the Kraken.

The trade is a beneficial arrangement for both teams. The Stars free up $4.5MM in cap space, which was given to Matt Duchene earlier today, while the Kraken add more goalscoring and physicality into their forward core.

Unfortunately for Dallas, trading Marchment without retaining salary doesn’t solve all of their financial issues. According to PuckPedia, the Stars have $4.95MM in cap space and either need to re-sign or add four to five more forwards to carry a full roster.

If Dallas can trade defensemen Matt Dumba and Ilya Lyubushkin, without retaining any salary, they’ll have just under $12MM in cap space, which would give them much more flexibility. Still, it’s hard to imagine a scenario in which the Stars’ roster doesn’t come out worse off compared to the one they finished their 2025 Stanley Cup playoff race with.

For Seattle, one team’s junk becomes another team’s treasure. Marchment has proven a capable 20-goal scorer over the last few years and can generate more than 100 hits in a season. The Kraken struggled in both areas during the 2024-25 season, finishing with five players recording 100 or more hits, and only four players scoring 20 or more goals.

The one interesting part of this trade by the Kraken is ascertaining where Marchment fits into the lineup. A natural winger, Marchment should expect to play in Seattle’s middle-six. Unfortunately, the team is already fairly crowded with wingers, given that Jaden Schwartz, Kaapo Kakko, Jared McCann, Jordan Eberle, André Burakovsky, and Eeli Tolvanen are all expected back next season.

At any rate, the team is excited to have him, as General Manager Jason Botterill said, “I think Mason has a unique combination of size, skill and strength. He works well down in the corners and around the net and that’s an element we want to continue to add to our group here.”

Trade Notes: Rossi, Marchment, Romanov

at CDT | by 8 Comments

In an article by Michael Russo and Joe Smith from The Athletic, which was later confirmed by Patrick Johnston of The Province, there is a growing consensus that the Vancouver Canucks have made a formal offer to the Minnesota Wild for Marco Rossi. While the complete trade offer remains unclear, the trio of writers believes the Canucks proposed the 15th overall pick in the 2025 NHL Draft along with a player.

Johnston elaborated in his article stating that it’s unclear whether the player offered to the Wild was a prospect, or one currently rostered with the Canucks. Still, the news confirms that Vancouver is being aggressive in their pursuit of upgrading their second-line center.

While it’s essentially understood that the Canucks and scoring winger Brock Boeser will be parting ways this summer, Vancouver has over $12MM in salary cap space for the offseason. That means the Canucks could comfortably offer Rossi his desired seven-year, $49MM contract, while leaving room for a few further upgrades.

Other trade notes:

  • After signing center Matt Duchene to a new four-year, $18MM contract earlier today, the Dallas Stars only have a projected $455K in salary cap space entering the offseason. Given this, the Stars are looking to move salary off the roster, and forward Mason Marchment has found his name in the center of the rumor mill. According to David Pagnotta of TheFourthPeriod, Dallas is receiving interest in Marchment’s services, particularly from the Toronto Maple Leafs and Utah Mammoth. Marchment already has some familiarity with the Maple Leafs, appearing in four games for the Original Six franchise during the 2019-20 season.
  • In a new report from Stefen Rosner in Responsible Gambling, he suggests that the New York Islanders are garnering trade interest in defenseman Alexander Romanov from the Boston Bruins and Philadelphia Flyers. Rosner provided context for the report by stating that he anticipates the Islanders will begin contract negotiations with Romanov in a few weeks. However, he noted that some teams expect these negotiations to take longer since the Islanders also need to sign Noah Dobson, Simon Holmström, and Maxim Tsyplakov, all while managing a cap space of only $21 million.

Free Agent Focus: St. Louis Blues

at CDT | by 8 Comments

Free agency is less than a month away and teams are looking ahead to when it opens.  There will be several impact players set to hit the open market in July while many teams have key restricted free agents to re-sign as well.  We continue our look around the NHL with an overview of the free agent situation for the Blues.

Key Restricted Free Agents

G Joel Hofer – If the Blues play out Hofer’s trip through restricted free agency the right way, Hofer will have a two-year deal by the end of the summer. The expiry of a new two-year agreement would line up exactly with the end of Jordan Binnington’s contract, giving Hofer and St. Louis an avenue for him to assume the role of starting netminder should he continue to improve. Hofer is coming off an impressive two-year stint as the Blues’ backup, managing a 31-20-4 record in 61 games with a .909 SV%, 2.65 GAA, 11.0 goals saved above average.

Other RFAs: F Nikita Alexandrov, F Mikhail Abramov, F Tanner Dickinson, D Hunter Skinner, D Anton Malmström, G Vadim Zherenko

Key Unrestricted Free Agents

D Ryan Suter – There’s a decent chance the Blues won’t have a decision to make for Suter this offseason. The 40-year-old veteran recently completed his 20th season at the NHL level, and despite indicating in March that he’d like to continue his playing career through the 2025-26 season, there may not be a robust market for him this offseason. After finishing the 2024-25 campaign with a 43.5% CorsiFor% at even strength, Suter’s best bet will be to wait out the market through the offseason and sign a league minimum deal as a seventh defenseman on a competitive roster should he continue his playing career.

F Radek Faksa – There’s a decent chance the Blues will look to retain Faksa this offseason. He’s a quality fourth-line center, winning 57.0% of faceoffs while starting 73.4% of his shifts in the defensive zone. St. Louis has a few young players looking to crack the roster for the 2025-26 campaign, but none of them are likely to affect Faksa’s role with the team. In early May, a report from Lou Korac of NHL.com suggested that Faksa and the Blues had already begun negotiations on a new deal, but nothing has come of them so far.

Other UFAs: F Mackenzie MacEachern, F Corey Andonovski

Projected Cap Space

Because they are projected to lose a small handful of players this offseason, the Blues won’t have much cap space entering the summer months. The Blues have just over $5 million in cap space, ranking fourth-lowest in the league, according to PuckPedia. Aside from re-signing Hofer, St. Louis already has a full roster for the 2025-26 season, and they could bank on their prospects filling in the remaining gaps. However, the Blues could use the upcoming buyout window to release Nick Leddy from the roster, saving them an additional $2MM, since they won’t be able to buy out the injured Torey Krug.

Gabriel Dumont Announces Retirement

at CDT | by 1 Comment

According to a team announcement, longtime captain for the AHL’s Syracuse Crunch, Gabriel Dumont, has announced his retirement from professional hockey. Dumont, 34, recently completed his 15th professional season.

Dumont’s entrance into professional hockey came in the fifth round of the 2009 NHL Draft, when the Montreal Canadiens selected him with the 139th overall pick. He subsequently had a promising year with the QMJHL’s Drummondville Voltigeurs, scoring 51 goals and 93 points in 62 games with an impressive +43 rating.

Unfortunately, that was the last of Dumont’s high-scoring days for quite some time. He spent the next six years buried in the AHL in the Canadiens organization, scoring 92 goals and 203 points in 389 AHL contests, while managing one goal and three points in 18 NHL games.

After the 2015-16 season, Dumont finally reached free agency and chose to sign a one-year agreement with the Tampa Bay Lightning. This was Dumont’s largest opportunity to play at the top level, scoring two goals and four points in 39 games for the Bolts, while averaging 9:40 of ice time per night. After a brief stint with the Ottawa Senators after being claimed off waivers, Dumont later returned to the Lightning organization, again via waivers, a few months later.

Despite posting a solid 15 goals and 43 points in 59 games for the Crunch in his first year as captain during the 2018-19 campaign, Dumont chose to leave the following summer, signing a two-year agreement with the Minnesota Wild. Dumont largely played in the AHL with Minnesota, scoring 20 goals and 46 points in 68 AHL contests, and going scoreless in three NHL appearances over two years.

The beginning of the 2021-22 season signified Dumont’s last move in his professional career and ended his NHL tenure. Syracuse’s former captain returned, again taking on the same leadership role, for the next four years. Unfortunately, Dumont couldn’t lead the Crunch very deep into the Calder Cup playoffs, but did have the best individual season of his career in 2021-22, scoring 30 goals and 62 points in 75 games.

The former fifth-round selection in the 2009 NHL Draft concluded his AHL career with a total of 202 goals and 459 points across 747 games, playing for the Crunch, Iowa Wild, Hamilton Bulldogs, and St. John’s IceCaps. In addition, he recorded four goals and nine points in 90 NHL appearances with the Canadiens, Lightning, Senators, and Wild. PHR congratulates Dumont on a quality professional career and wishes him the best in retirement.

Seattle Kraken Announce Assistant Coaching Hires

at CDT | by 4 Comments

The Seattle Kraken are no longer one of the few remaining teams with numerous vacancies on their coaching staff. The Kraken announced they’ve hired Aaron Schneekloth and Chris Taylor as assistant coaches, and Colin Zulianello as the team’s new goaltending coach.

Schneekloth’s hiring comes with little surprise, as Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman linked him to the Kraken’s assistant coaching vacancy a few days ago. Schneekloth was serving as the head coach of the AHL’s Colorado Eagles, taking over as the main bench boss upon Greg Cronin’s departure after the 2022-23 campaign. He coached the Eagles to an 83-46-10-5 record over two years, guiding the team to become regular season champions of the Pacific Division and advancing to the Division Finals in the Calder Cup playoffs.

Unlike Schneekloth, Taylor won’t be a rookie coach at the NHL level. After spending eight years as the assistant coach and head coach of the AHL’s Rochester Americans, Taylor was hired by the New Jersey Devils as an assistant coach ahead of the 2020-21 season under then-head coach, Lindy Ruff. Taylor survived New Jersey’s transition from Ruff to Travis Green, and then from Green to Sheldon Keefe.

Ultimately, the Kraken decided to hire their next goaltending coach from within the organization. Zulianello has been in the same role for the AHL’s Coachella Valley Firebirds for the last three years. He had plenty of experience with Seattle’s current starting netminder, Joey Daccord, from the 2022-23 season, and aided in the Firebirds allowing fewer than 200 goals against in two out of his three years as the team’s goaltending coach.

Boston Bruins Announce Development Camp Roster

at CDT | by Leave a Comment

Today, the Boston Bruins announced their preliminary roster for the upcoming development camp as the offseason approaches. The 22-player roster will surely grow, especially after the Bruins make their seven selections in the 2025 NHL Draft, if not more. The current iteration of the roster is as follows, and will include where each player was rostered during the 2024-25 campaign, and their draft ranking:

Forwards

Dalton Bancroft (Cornell University, undrafted)
Andre Gasseau (Boston College, 213th overall, 2021)
Beckett Hendrickson (University of Minnesota, 124th overall, 2023)
Dean Letourneau (Boston College, 25th overall, 2024)
Bret Link (Colorado College, undrafted)
Jonathan Morello (Dubuque Fighting Saints, 154th overall, 2024)
Logan Morrell (Arizona State University, undrafted)
Casper Nässén (Miami University (Ohio), 214th overall, 2023)
Chris Pelosi (Quinnipiac University, 92nd overall, 2023)
Ryan Walsh (Cornell University, 188th overall, 2023)
Ethan Whitcomb (University of Connecticut, undrafted)
Will Zellers (Green Bay Gamblers, 76th overall, 2024)

Defensemen

Jackson Edward (Providence Bruins, 200th overall, 2022)
CJ Foley (Dartmouth College, undrafted)
Ty Gallagher (Colorado College, 217th overall, 2021)
Elliott Groenewold (Quinnipiac University, 110th overall, 2024)
Loke Johansson (Moncton Wildcats, 186th overall, 2024)
Kristian Kostadinski (Boston College, 220th overall, 2023)
Ben Robertson (Cornell University, undrafted)

Goalies

Albin Boija (University of Maine, undrafted)
Cameron Korpi (University of Michigan, undrafted)
Philip Svedebäck (Providence College, 117th overall, 2021)

Pro Hockey Rumors is not affiliated with National Hockey League, NHL or NHL.com

scroll to top